Book Review The Other Americans: How Immigrants Renew Our Country,Our Economy,and Our Values. Joel Millman. New York: Viking Penguin, 1997. 369 pages. Hardcover; $24.95

Population and Environment -     

Our bodies,our choices: Australian law on foetal personhood

The debate revolving around foetal vs maternal rights has been philosophised for years. It has captured attention internationally with the European Court of Human Rights struggling for over five decades to define personhood, and is still yet to reach a definite formulation. A proposed Law Crimes Amendment Bill (Zoe's Law, 2) is currently fuelling public debate about women's reproductive choices in New South Wales, Australia. The proposed legal bill attempts to redefine a ‘person’ or ‘human being’ by placing a marker on when ‘personhood begins’ namely at 20 weeks or weighing a minimum of 400 g. Similar laws recognising personhood at foetal viability have come into force in the United States of America that clearly show the broader consequences of this kind of legislation as American women now face county-by-county, state-by-state anti-choice legislative activism. Midwives work closely with women and their families giving them the authority to formulate opinions on issues of maternal–foetal conflict. If a law such as this is allowed to pass a number of legal and ethical issues will arise for Australian midwives that could potentially have far reaching implications for them and for the women and families that they provide women centred care for.     

Walt Whitman,Our Great Gay Poet?

ABSTRACT

This article surveys the critical debates around Walt Whitman's “Calamus” cluster, arguing that a “queer” reading of Whitman—one that does not see him as, for example, a closeted homosexual who censored his work for fear of being “outed”—is both historically accurate and politically efficacious. While previous efforts to reclaim Whitman as “our great gay poet” are understandable—particularly given critical readings of Whitman that denied the homoeroticism of his poems—today, a reading of Whitman as homosexual threatens to simplify our understanding of the history of homosexuality and to blunt the power of Whitman's poetry to continue to “queer” normative understandings of sex and gender identity categories and their relationship to politics.     

Our population predicament: a new look

Issued to mark the Population Reference Bureau's 50th anniversary, this issue updates the story of world population presented in its popular predecessor of 1971, "Man's Population Predicament." Estimated at 1/2 billion in 1650, world population reached about 2 billion in 1930, 4 billion in 1975, and is projected to be about 6 billion in 2000. Most of today's rapid growth is occurring among the 3/4 of the world's peoples living in less developed countries where the post-World War II gap between high birth rates and falling death rates has only recently begun to narrow. This growth, coupled with high consumption in developing countries, is putting tremendous pressures on the Earth's resources, environment, and social fabric. New evidence on Europe's population transition and from China, Indonesia, and Thailand in the 1970s suggests that well-designed family planning programs can speed fertility decline but rapid worldwide attainment of replacement level fertility will also require special development efforts and measures that go beyond family planning. Current projections of the world's ultimate peak population range from 8 billion in the mid 21st century to 11 billion in about 2125, depending on when replacement-level fertility is reached. China's drive for a drastic birth rate reduction and the oil crisis might change fertility behavior more rapidly than most demographers have heretofore thought likely.     

我国隐性就业的现状、效应及政策分析

隐性就业作为我国经济体制转型和社会保障制度建构过程中出现的特殊就业形式,具有双重社会效应。一方面,失业(下岗)人员通过市场机制实现再就业,有助于改善他们的实际生活,一定程度上缓解政府面临的失业难题,而且对建立以市场为导向就业机制具有积极作用。另一方面,隐性就业加大了劳动就业制度改革的成本,损及社会公平,并导致就业市场信息失真,误导政府的宏观决策。但从总体上看,“隐性就业”对我国社会经济的发展还是弊大于利的。本文从劳动统计、就业体制和社会保障等方面为隐性就业的显性化提出了几点建议。     

Our Life

Afghan. ＂When he frowned and walked out from the room, I knew there was something wrong. The system had to be reinstalled again.＂ Xue Ping said.     

On Our Memory of Gay Sullivan: A Hidden Trajectory

ABSTRACT

This article examines psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan's approach to the issue of homosexuality. Sullivan (1892–1949), well-known for his interpersonal theory of mental illness, is believed to have accomplished a high recovery rate in his treatment of schizophrenia during the 1920s. Most of his patients, as well as Sullivan himself, were concerned about their “homosexual” orientations. He encouraged physical affection between male patients and male attendants, believing that it would free patients from their guilt for their “unconventional” sexuality. But he kept his compelling practice hidden, not bringing it into open discussion to confront the definition of homosexuality as “sickness.” This article traces the process in which the omission of the important aspect of Sullivan's practice began during his lifetime and continued in the scholarship since. In so doing, the article suggests a nuanced understanding of this important figure in the U.S. intellectual and cultural history of homosexuality.     

试论我国人口素质下降的证据.原因及对策

本文举证分析了造成我国人口素质下降的原因，提出了防止我国人口素质下降的对策     

中国的人口未来:我们应该如何做出选择?

70年代中期以来,中国的人口学研究有了历史性的进展.但是回顾这近30年学科发展的曲折历程,除了理论研究、学科建设以及实证分析等各个领域在不断的完善中迅速成长之外,十分令人瞩目的是:作为中国人口学发展的主脉之一,一些重大的、全局性理论问题不仅经常引发观点分歧、从而成为学术论战的"导火索",而且它们也始终是困扰人口学界的"难点"所在.而在这些问题中间,有关中国人口长远发展目标及其途径与手段的问题,显得更为突出和典型.